Letter from Mark Langabeer, Hastings and Rye Labour Member
Labour’s victory in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election has been described as ‘seismic’ and if it was repeated in a general election, Labour would win 42 seats in Scotland becoming once again the dominant party in Scotland. It was a 20% swing to Labour. There are caveats to this story.
The turnout was only 37 %, and it is not unusual for incumbents to lose a by- election and subsequently win in a general election. It has been suggested that many SNP supporters stayed at home.
Despite even these caveats, the result has witnessed a remarkable turnaround in the fortunes of Scottish Labour. It was not so long ago, many pundits , from both left and right of the political spectrum, argued that Labour were in terminal decline in Scotland.
In general terms. most of Labour’support is from the have-nots in society. The SNP were able to undermine Labour for a long time with an anti- austerity message. I recall a woman on BBC Question Time, saying that she had always voted Labour, but had switched to the SNP because Labour had sold out.
Mhairi Black, one of the radical SNP leaders remarked that while Scotland votes Labour we can end up with a Tory Government at Westminster and her solution was an independent Scotland. In fact, independence is likely to exacerbate the problems faced by the majority of Scottish workers. Socialists are internationalists, and not for sentimental reasons.
Along with private ownership, the nation state is an obstacle to human progress. I recall Nicola Sturgeon acknowledging the effect of the Corbyn ‘surge’ in the 2017 General Election, largely due to Labour’s anti- austerity message. But with Labour’s right-wing back in the saddle, why are Scottish workers turning to Labour?
The refusal of the Tories to give a fresh referendum on Independence has provoked splits within the SNP on the best strategy. Nationalist movements have a tendency to split, because they attempt to gloss over the chief divide in society which is class based. Labour in Scotland have correctly concentrated on the bread and butter issues.
Anwar, the SLP leader, might be little different from Starmer, but he was prepared to go to picket lines and distance himself from Starmer on issues like the two-child limit on benefits. For a long period, the working class in Britain as a whole has been relatively passive and the wave of strikes we’ve seen has a unifying effect that cuts across national boundaries. This will inevitably be reflected in the trade union’s political arm, which is the Labour Party.
